Taxi Driver Online

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Reply From T.
When I drive PH (unmarked) I use a hold up sign, Its purpose made drywipe board. I write the pick-up name on the board usually its my most regular customer Mr. Fur-Hyre, works every time.

Dear Mr Fur-Hyre
I now see the point you are trying to make, however you must admit it is only one point of view which is not in line with the vast majority of the country.

I would say that you need to realise that we are serving the public as much as you are and the most efficient way to do it is by having PHV roof and door signs.

The Board approach is something which might have been reasonably argued years ago but with the advent of mobile phones much of what used to be hackney business has moved towards pre-booked PHVs being called by a customer and arriving 10 minutes later, rather than the customer walking out to wait at a taxi rank.

You may feel agrieved that PHVs are doing traditional Taxi work but that is because the public are booking them and as we all know the customer is always right ( except when he is being a total p... , such as on a friday or saturday night! )

We really are 2 sides of the one coin with more to unite than divide us.

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Our safety is Paramount

We really are 2 sides of the one coin with more to unite than divide us. :)[/quote]

Reply from T.
Yes yes yes, PH doing traditional Taxi work, that whats wrong. It is Taxi work not PH work. The rise of the PH really took off when YP lumped Taxis And PH together in the same section of the directory, PH still had their own section as well, this did more to mislead, misdirect the public than any other publication. Circuit operators also added to it by allowing PH vehicles on the same circuit as Taxis. Taxi circuits began with a group of drivers banding together to form a company. Their main income was direct from fares, the customers, but now as they have got bigger they have become a service provider to the Taxi driver/owner and their income is now subscriptions, fee etc. The fares are no longer their customers the Taxi drivers are. PH became just another market to sell their services to. It makes no difference to the heads of the large companies Taxi - PH who cares as long as the subs are paid.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

When you pick up at Gatwick, Heathrow or anywhere outside your district, do you take off all your signage and roof lights?

If not, why not?

What's the difference from you picking up fully signed in an area you are not licensed to ply, and me picking up fully signed?

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IDFIMH

Reply from T.
A Taxi is a Taxi I am not allowed to remove the signage whilst it is a licensed vehicle. So you advocate Dereg but you want to retain boundaries why ?
You having a fully signed PH is misleading public, you are not a Taxi. Thats the difference.

My council wont allow me to remove my signage.

As for your other point, when you are picking up out of your area you are acting as a PH, so why do you need signage out of your area?

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IDFIMH

UP THE HACKS....PH'S R PLASTIC TAXIS...BUY A TX INSTEAD O SOMEBODY'S OLD CAR WI A ROOF SIGN !!!!

Your Council were hoodwinked into allowing you to have signage in the first place !
As I said before A Taxi is a Taxi its license does not vary, a vehicle can have both and be Taxi & PH, I think that was the case years ago anyway. Taxis have always accepted advance bookings and returns, it is a matter of public choice. A customer can ring and book any Taxi in any area to pick them up from any area. That has always been the case and still is. I need a licence to ply for hire in any given area, an operators licence to advertise a service in any given area. If I am in Manchester and I want a Birmingham Taxi to come and pick me up and take me to Liverpool and I am prepared to pay for that service its my choice and no laws are broken. I do not need signage outside my area but the decision takers know that it would be totally impractical and serve no purpose to remove it every time we left our district. That's common sense a thing extremely lacking on this site and in your posts in particular. The tide has turned.
HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN.

You say PH doing traditional taxi work is wrong but if you look back a bit you'll see that you agreed with me that PH came about to fill the void left by Hackneys who couldn't/wouldn't do pre-booked work. So I agree PH does do traditional hackney work but it is no ones fault except the Hackneys who wouldn't do the Pre-booked work and were too selfish to allow more hackney plates to be issued to pick up the unmet demand for pre-booked jobs. it really is no use complaining about the solution to the problem when the problem was created by hackneys themselves.

You cannot truly believe that YP was responsible for the rise of the PHV industry. What about advertising, providing a good service, being reliable, satisfying customer needs, and marketing initiatives etc etc.
However as we are agreed that PH are providing a traditional taxi service it was obviously perfectly logical of YP to put PH with Taxi services. Hackneys are Public Hire and PH is Private Hire, if a member of the public wishes to pre-book a Hire then putting both Public and Private Hire under one "Taxi Services Sect " is simply good customer services from YP to it's users....One coin..Two sides

_________________
Our safety is Paramount

You say PH doing traditional taxi work is wrong but if you look back a bit you'll see that you agreed with me that PH came about to fill the void left by Hackneys who couldn't/wouldn't do pre-booked work. So I agree PH does do traditional hackney work but it is no ones fault except the Hackneys who wouldn't do the Pre-booked work and were too selfish to allow more hackney plates to be issued to pick up the unmet demand for pre-booked jobs. it really is no use complaining about the solution to the problem when the problem was created by hackneys themselves.

You cannot truly believe that YP was responsible for the rise of the PHV industry. What about advertising, providing a good service, being reliable, satisfying customer needs, and marketing initiatives etc etc.

However as we are agreed that PH are providing a traditional taxi service it was obviously perfectly logical of YP to put PH with Taxi services. Hackneys are Public Hire and PH is Private Hire, if a member of the public wishes to pre-book a Hire then putting both Public and Private Hire under one "Taxi Services Sect " is simply good customer service from YP to it's users....One coin..Two sides

_________________
Our safety is Paramount

You say PH doing traditional taxi work is wrong but if you look back a bit you'll see that you agreed with me that PH came about to fill the void left by Hackneys who couldn't/wouldn't do pre-booked work. So I agree PH does do traditional hackney work but it is no ones fault except the Hackneys who wouldn't do the Pre-booked work and were too selfish to allow more hackney plates to be issued to pick up the unmet demand for pre-booked jobs. it really is no use complaining about the solution to the problem when the problem was created by hackneys themselves.

You cannot truly believe that YP was responsible for the rise of the PHV industry. What about advertising, providing a good service, being reliable, satisfying customer needs, and marketing initiatives etc etc.

However as we are agreed that PH are providing a traditional taxi service it was obviously perfectly logical of YP to put PH with Taxi services. Hackneys are Public Hire and PH is Private Hire, if a member of the public wishes to pre-book a Hire then putting both Public and Private Hire under one "Taxi Services Sect " is simply good customer service from YP to it's users....One coin..Two sides

_________________
Our safety is Paramount

Reply from T.
To a certain extent the mess is of our own doing. PH are a suppliment to the Taxi trade, without the Taxis there would be no PH, if PH were banned from advertising alongside Taxis many would go out of business. No matter how good a service PH provide in the eyes of the public they barely exist, PH does not have the kudos of Taxis. If as you say PH exist on their own merits they why do they clammer to be Taxis ?
YP was the main advertising outlet, its position now is very different, the internet is going to wipe out a large slice of YP income but it did have a significant effect on blurring the distinction between PH & Taxis.
The other culprit is the radio circuits, the larger they get the more detatched they are from the end user, their emphasis changes from being a service provider to the travelling public to a service provider to the Taxis. Their income is governed by the number of subscribers on the circuit not how many passengers are picked up. Vehicles of any description are acceptable as long as they pay their subs. For example, when the radio circuits dominate a town or city it is not in their interest to see new ranks, rank congestion works in their favour it forces more Taxis to join. But even the radio circuits have paracites, the growth of middlemen companies that control free-phones at supermarkets and other hot spots, there are too many mouths to feed in our industry at every level.

told u lot b4 ! close down all offices till we have control of trade..when we do, re-open with no ph's, and no discount,and no profit either ! coz our cars will be making money !!!

We're getting closer in our view. I do agree that circuits are creaming off far too much ,money from the trade, both PH and Hackney and their competition with each other is driving down rates for jobs.

Perhaps what we all really need to do is take back control of the circuits into the hands of owners/drivers and run them as a non profit making collectives.

But they MUST be run professionally with customer needs as the prime concern not whether any particular job is lucrative or not....you know what I mean.

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Our safety is Paramount

Reply from T.
Careful; "collectives"; there are those here that would scream CARTEL. In the Dereg/Delimit utopia everyone would be at the mercy of the Taxi Companies, when every man and his dog can get a plate the man with the biggest dog will win. If you lose regulation you lose protection, not just for Taxis but PH as well. Taxi Barons would be Taxi gods, the power of income or poverty.